The UCSF DERCs Pilot &Feasibility Program mission is to: Facilitate and allow new investigators and junior faculty to establish research programs in diabetes; [unreadable] Encourage new and innovative collaborations amongst DERC/UCSF faculty. [unreadable] Enable established faculty to transfer skills and research developments to the arena of diabetes research; [unreadable] Foster highly innovative early stage in basic and clinical diabetes research; In the first six years of supporting diabetes research at UCSF, a total of $634,000 was approved for 19 out of 52 grant applications under five annual Request for Applications. Five of those applications were for the renewal of a project for a second year. The P&F program was dedicated to facilitating all UCSF Faculty wishing to pursue new initiatives in basic or clinical diabetes research. The 14 successful research programs were conducted in 11 different departments or divisions. The DERC Program placed a high priority on providing support for young faculty intending to establish research programs with particular relevance to diabetes. Eight of the fourteen projects supported in the prior funding cycle came from newly established junior faculty. The P&F program was highly successful at launching new projects in diabetes research. Projects that were initiated with seed funding have, to date, resulted in approved extramural grants of $8,323,690 in total direct costs ($6,083,000 to early stage investigators). This outstanding return reflects the extremely high quality of the applications received. Our goal is to increase further this success in the coming cycle. Our RFAs will reach a broader segment of UCSF by participating in a recently set-up campus-wide intramural grants support system. A doubling in the average grant size will capture an even larger number of high quality applications and permit grantees greater leeway in proposing innovative projects. Finally, we have exciting plans to improve our mentoring and feedback mechanisms that ensure our P&F grant recipients take full advantage of the local expertise.